Sensor dry mode on our Neptune always lasted 4 minutes no matter how wet the clothes were in the dryer. After opening the dryer to clean out the dust, I noticed that the sensor bar only had 2 blue wires attached to it, both at the same end. I don't have the schematic but I did find one here and it shows two blue wires going back to the control circuit. However, there is a "sensor ground wire" part (AP3970815) for this dryer which made me think something is missing from the dryer to make sensor dry work correctly.

I suspected that the sensor bars were supposed to have a ground and that wet clothing would short across the bars which would inform the sensor circuitry to continue drying. I checked with a multimeter to see if an internal short existed; nothing showed up.

I created a grounding wire and hooked it to the two lugs at other end and then to one of the screws holding the gas valve bracket on the bottom pan. Sensor dry times are now in the 30 to 40 minute range with no clothes in the dryer.

So my question is: should the sensor be wired to ground?